Laura Rich
Upward Mobility Ticking Up, a Little
It’s been three years of some rough stuff, but Americans are starting to report that when they’ve changed jobs, it’s been for something better paying or a higher-level position, according to a report from Experian Simmons.
According to the research firm, 6.5% of those who changed jobs in the last year moved into a better spot. No, it’s not much, but it turns out that moving up has never been something experienced by the majority of the population. In January 2008, when the economy was still mostly strong (the official start of the recession came in December 2007, but took months to ripple through the general economy), 9.9% of Americans said they had moved into better jobs in the previous year. The latest figure is also up significantly from April’s 4.6%.
Some further “good” news, that just 2.4% of Americans who switched jobs in the last year moved into lower level or lower paying positions. Bright side.
We’re not jumping up and down about any sort of real recovery yet, and the current unemployment and new-jobs numbers (9.8%; a mere 39,000 new jobs) indicate a seriously bleak backdrop. Which lends a sort of cognitive dissonance to Experian’s claim that slightly more Americans are starting to look hopeful about job opportunities (8.2% compared to 6.6% in July). But let’s take the good news where we can.
Lavish Them with Gifts, Lazy-Style
Call me a Grinch, but the holidays are never more daunting than when you’re sitting down to make your shopping list for friends and family. After so many years, you’ve probably cycled through the same items many times over (I know I have!). So here are some ideas and commentary from the folks at Cardpool.com who suggest they’re for “lazy gift-givers.” I sure hope my family isn’t reading this, but I probably fall into that category. Hope you find this as helpful as I did, and if you’ve got additional please add to the list in the comments below. Happy holidays!
1. Cardpool.com
Gift cards. That are up to 30% discounted. What’s not to love? That means you can buy the people on your “nice” list cards for some of the top retailers, restaurants, movie theaters and even airlines without breaking the bank.
2. Whatever of the Month Clubs
For everyone on your list, there’s a gift of the month club – bacon of the month, beer of the month, jam of the month (for the Christmas Vacation fans out there) – get your creative juices flowing. Murray’s in New York even has a meat of the month club delivered nationwide – a gift that keeps giving year round.
Who doesn’t love movies? Purchase a gift certificate for Hulu Premium so your gift recipient can stream the newest shows without all the ads.
You can use your own photos to print out aprons, coasters, mugs, key chains, etc. This is one of those gifts that will make you look like you really gave it the personal touch. Just upload a photo on a site and let it do all the hard work.
Spafinder takes the spa gift certificate to the next level. Let your recipient pick out the spa and the treatment without putting your bank account in the red.
Stashing Cash Over the Border
Apparently, some people are still concerned about the stability of U.S. banks. In a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, cable titan John Malone, for one, noted that his wife had pulled all of her money out of American financial institutions and parked it in Australia and Canada.
“She wants to have a place to go if things blow up here,” he told the paper in an interview. “Canada has a lot more fiscal and bank responsibility than most places in the world and lots of natural resources. We have a retreat that’s right on the Quebec border. We own 18 miles on the border, so we can cross. Any time we want to, we can get away. It would probably be illegal, but we could go. Actually, our snowmobile trail goes right on the border.”
So far this year, the FDIC has seized about 100 banks. Maybe she’s on to something.
A Cool, Free Way to Figure Out a Business Idea’s Potential
Every day, it gets cheaper and easier to start a business. Want to put up a website? Try the free, open source WordPress platform. Need to sell some stuff? There are free or cheap e-commerce engines that manage the front end of the process. Even fulfillment can be automated, depending on what you’re peddling. And advertising is a plug-in from Google.
But what doesn’t get easier despite disruptive technology is putting together a viable business idea and creating a solid plan for executing on it. I’m not familiar with them, but have no doubt there are websites that aim to automate the business-idea process. I can’t imagine the businesses created this way will last very long or get very big.
The good news is that even if there’s no Web shortcut for good ideas, there’s now a free option that takes you through the rigorous process, holding your hand every step of the way, and forcing you to work out your ideas, through tutorials and worksheets. Most times, these tools are not free, and are usually very expensive…
A Personal Branding Roadmap That Just May Work
We’ve been thinking a lot about “personal branding” here at Recessionwire. In an economy where there are more people looking than jobs—and it’s expected to stay that way for years, if forever—we’ve all got to take things into our own hands a bit more. Do what we can to stand out, and create a roadmap and profile for the careers we want. “Personal branding” is a big part of that.
Of course, it’s something that seems to make more sense for those who have a track record to shape into a story behind a personal brand. But even college students and grads should be thinking about how to position themselves and create their own platform, whether it’s to get a full-time job or chart an alternative path through starting a business or consulting or freelance work.
PricewaterhouseCoopers is doing a good job of addressing this issue, with a program called “Personal Branding Week.” It’s online and it’s free. There are instructive tips and accompanying worksheets that are really quite brilliant. But even though PwC says it’s focusing on students and grads, everyone should spend some time going through this process…
AA for Recession Victims
“Hi, my name is X, and I’ve been feeling a little bit screwed by the economy.”
“Hello, X.”
It’s not likely that such a formal introduction will take place when a support group for recession victim gathers this Thursday at 9 p.m. at the Odessa Cafe in Manhattan. But the group, a Meetup titled “WTF Now?“, does take its inspiration from other aspects of Alcoholics Anonymous, according to organizer Chrissy Rossettie.
“My boyfriend goes to AA and gets a lot out of it,” she says. “So I thought, ‘Why not have a support group for unemployed New Yorkers?’ If nothing else, I’m hoping that it will provide a forum for people to vent and blow off steam, and maybe feel a little less alone and lost.”…
11 Easy Steps to Relocating
If Tom Joad were here today (and real), he might just sit tight in his home state of Oklahoma.
That’s because, despite record high unemployment and an unequal distribution of jobs across the fifty states, fewer unemployed Americans are hitting the road in search of work since World War II.
Worse: only 7.3% of job seekers relocated for work in the fourth quarter of 2009, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
Perhaps employers just aren’t hiring across state lines, but some people have it tough—saddled with debt, or a home that they can’t sell. Who’s got the cash for a big move into the unknown?…
The Recession Will End… In Years, Not Months
Most Americans think we’ll be in recession for two more years. According to a new poll from Gallop/USA Today, just as many people think the recession will end in a year as do those who think it will end in five years, with the rest of the respondents falling in the middle.
Could such gloom just be the winter blues? Perhaps, but the findings are similar to those from July:
When asked in an open-ended question how long they expect it to be before the economy starts to recover, 30% now say five years or more, up from 19% in February but similar to the 28% who said so in December. Overall, 68% of Americans now expect it to take two years or more before the economy starts to recover, little changed from 71% in February. One in four (27%) now expect it to take less than two years, about the same as the 24% in February who said this.
…
Unemployment is in the Attitude
I’m unemployed, sort of. I was laid off from my job about a year ago. Now, I’m self-employed, which sometimes feels like unemployed: having to get my own health insurance, scrap together my own income from freelance projects, create my own “office” at home or at coffee shops. But most of all, it’s outlook and attitude that makes all the difference.
Some folks who have been laid off are bitter towards their former employer, their friends, the world at dumping them out on the street. I don’t blame them for their frustrations. It ain’t easy.
But you don’t turn around an undesirable situation with grumbling, passive aggression, a sense of entitlement, bullying or any other behaviors that, face it, don’t make you feel all that great. (At least, not for more than a few minutes.) Worse, it comes across loud and clear, and makes you even more undesirable…
WIFT?
The best thing you can do if you’re looking for a job is to network and get any meeting you can. But as Phil Rosenberg points out on reCareered, it’s not all about you:
Chances are your new contact is a busy person who doesn’t have much spare time on their hands. You as a job seeker have a very real reason you want to have coffee – you want their help in finding a job at their company (What’s in it for me – WIFM). But what reason do you give your contact? What’s in it for them (WIFT)?
Exactly—WIFT?
Don’t forget that to be effective in your networking, you need to bring something to the table as well. What can you offer the other person? Do you have information or other contacts that might be valuable to them? Your meeting may simply be an act of generosity on their part, or it may serve their own goals around helping people. In other cases, you can help build your value—a key factor in getting closer to a job—by being a resource to them. Just be careful of coming across too sleazy. The scratch-my-back tack can get a little icky if you overdo it…
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